Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Sprout!

I lovingly knit the last stitch on my baby blanket, and I'm positively beaming to share it with you ....

I designed this blanket in an embossed leaf pattern. It's definitely a challenging pattern, since the stitch count changes over the course of each sprout, but the extra fabric that's made for each leaf gives it a gorgeous, rich, three-dimensional texture.

It uses 3 skeins of Spud & Chloe 'Sweater,' which is a lovely machine-washable blend of organic cotton and superwash wool, in the color 'Grass.' I think the color is more of a celery green than a grass green, but in any case, it's cheery and bright and gender neutral. And it has such a lusciously soft hand!

The seeds of this blanket, so to speak, were planted several years ago, when I made a friend a baby blanket with this leaf motif in one of the early organic cotton yarns (see it here). For years, I've had it in mind to improve on the pattern and find a machine-washable yarn for it. When I found out that another friend was having her first baby, and I learned about the new Spud & Chloe yarn line, it was the perfect time to revisit the pattern.

I chose the increases and decreases with special care, so that the back of the blanket would be as beautiful and symmetrical as the front. I just love this blanket.

It's already packed up and in the mail to my friend. I am so excited for her! And I found the perfect handmade card to go with it -- a darling letterpress card from sweetbeets.

The pattern is all written up and available for sale on Ravelry. If you'd like to buy it, you can either click here to purchase and download it from Ravelry, or you can send me an email at evergreenknits@gmail.com.

And as always, to thank you my readers I'll be giving away five copies of the pattern in a little comments contest. To enter, just leave me a comment! I'll draw names this Friday, October 3.

42 comments:

Hanna........what a lovely pattern and perfect for new growth & beginnings!......I'm a home birth midwife here in Utah and a new knitter but in time & with lots of practice I may be able to create this gorgeous blanket.......I'd love the pattern! peace,Karen

My sister and her husband are trying for baby number 3 - hoping for a girl. How perfect would this blanket be? I would be Aunt Exemplar! Fingers crossed to win your pattern. Would look amazing in some Jo Sharp silk road tweed, don't you think?

That blanket is beautiful, I love the depth you have created with the leaves. Your friend will be delighted I am sure. Its the kind of blanket that will become a 'heritage-blankie' and kept for the next generation - well donekate in lancashire uk

OMG! How proud should you be? That is simply marvelous. I saw it and imagined giving it to a couple expecting their first child as a 'family tree' blanket, or a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. Or a couple getting married and joining more than one family tree together.

I love this blanket yesterday when I saw it on Ravelry. I like to make baby blankets with some detail in the patterns. The card went perfect with the gift. I make a couple of yellow duck baby bibs last week, I found a yellow duck gift bag, and also a baby card with a yellow duck on card, and I use yellow tissue paper. I like to coordinate my wrapping of presents with the gift, too. I would to win a free copy of this pattern for the baby blanket.Knittingdancer on Ravelry

wow, yo u knit that up pretty quickly! ( unless it was hiding in the works as it being a gift and all) beautiful though! that would have been a great baby blanket to receive when dd was born!! and yes, the back looks as lovely as the front! I have purchsed some spud & chloe to knit some new fingerless gloves but haevn't used it yet.

OMG!!Just when I think that you cant knit anything better than the last pic you show us.. you come up with such a beautiful blankie. Thankyou for providing me with such inspiration and hopefully one day I will be a lot better knitter than I am now.Lea-Anne in oz

It's soo cute! an adorable blanket for little elf and eco-baby!I just learnd to knit, and I'm only at the second project (your storm cloud shawlette) but when I learnd more I want to try this pattern!maybe with the leaf at the edge for a big blanket for me and my boyfriend.Eilinorp.s. excuse me for my terrible english but I'm italian and I have some difficult in writeing english

It's such an adorable blanket ! I'm not sure I'd have the time/patience to knit one for a baby, but I'd love to make a larger sized one for myself ..!!! :-P(my word verification was "boring" btw.. so not your blog ! :-D)